Metropolitan National Bank was planning a grand opening celebration for its new location in Marshfield, MO. Its marketing partner, Revel Advertising, had sent out many event invitations on behalf of the bank over the years, so this time, it was on the lookout for something really different.
Chris Jarratt, Creative Director for Revel Advertising, was searching Red Paper Plane’s website for dimensional mailers for another project. When he came upon RPP’s Pop-Up House format, he stopped short. “I couldn’t believe it,” he says. “The building is shaped very similar to the one that Metropolitan National Bank is building in town. It literally looks like their building.”
The Pop-Up House it was! Revel Advertising printed 250 copies and distributed them to the media, board members, prospects, and key clients. The pop-up invitation joined the other two prongs of the campaign, an email blast and an ad in the local newspaper.
The response to the Pop-Up House, in Jarratt’s words, was “ridiculous.” “People were bringing the invitation to the event because they thought it was cool,” he says. “One individual even became upset because he thought someone stole it off his desk. Even though the invitation cost more than a standard invitation, one of the board members for the bank stopped me and said, ‘I’m really glad you did this!’ People couldn't stop talking about it.”
The excitement continued to soar even though, on the day of the grand opening, the weather couldn’t have been worse. People turned out in droves. “There was almost a foot of snow and there were still tons of people there,” says Jarratt. “For us, the invitation gave us a featured talking point. People kept asking, ‘ How about that invitation?’”
While the bank spent more for the Pop-Up House than it had for invitations in the past, the value they got out of it was “far and above” their expectations. “You can’t go into the town without seeing the new building,” Jarratt concludes. “When the invitation popped out of the envelope, it was literally, ‘This is the building that just popped up in the town!’ It gave the event life before the grand opening, and well after it, too!”